Accessibility Apologia

This week I received a few emails about attempts to make conferences accessible after the fact. Some of these emails asked for folk to approach these emails in good faith, that they understood that what they were proposing was far from what folk have been telling them for a long time, but at least it was something right?

I am going to be honest (because I am never anything but this, if you know me and the work that I do, and what I advocate for) that emails like this really upset me more than give me hope. They upset me because instead of demonstrating that they care about inclusion, they tend to reinforce that they never really were paying that much attention before (and for years). In fact often these kinds of emails only come around when a group has sort of forced their hand if you will. Often it is when there is some sort of protest, lack of interest or registration for a conference, or some other thing that has come up that makes them realize that they need to do some sort of accessibility public relations.

The other thing that makes me upset about emails like this is that they often are framed as a request to "make accessibility better", asking disabled folk to help support the inclusion that they have forgotten and systemically ignored, and almost always in an uncompensated way. And this is an important point to reinforce, because yes disability justice means making sure that those most impacted are the ones driving and supporting the changes, but it is almost always done within a capitalist system that just wants to extract time and labour from the folk who have very little of that to give because of all the other pressures the capitalist system has put on them.

I have seen conferences now have some sort of accessibility advisor whose job is to make sure all the accessibility pieces are in place. Depending on the association or organization that is a paid or stipend position, but again this is a rare occurrence. In other spaces folk point to documents that state how to make a PowerPoint presentation accessible or other accessible presentation guidance and pat themselves on the back for a job well done in thinking about accessibility. This is of course a bare minimum situation, and nowhere in those documents or thinking about planning are things like cost of the conference itself, inclusive spaces for neurodivergent folk, inclusive transportation possibilities, how the conference venue itself may be filled with barriers (steps, lack of elevators, no automatic door openers etc.).

I am one of those people who as the years go on is getting even more upset at the crumbs that are thrown our way and shouted to the rooftops with no captions or ASL/LSQ or CART as "look accessibility!" that we are told we are supposed to have gratitude for. That we are supposed to see the good faith they say- these things take time, even though human rights legislation and equity guidance has been on the books for decades in many places.

I know deeply how much this is long game work. How I will probably not see advances that we need in my own lifetime. It is hard not to be discouraged by that. I see folk posting on LinkedIn and social media spaces about how they feel they cannot continue doing this work; it is too hard, it is too demoralizing, it is too heartbreaking. And I get it, I get all of it. And when you read these apologia emails with that context it hurts even more, because you want to say, wait, we have been saying this for years. Wait I can send you not less than 10 emails about this exact thing that I sent you in the last few months. 

So what happens when PR is just that, a meaningless acronym, knowing that next year the conferences will still be inaccessible, knowing that the voices of folk will still be ignored? I mean that's actually what they want right? They want us to shut up, they want us to be happy with the gluten-filled crumbs they are sending us in those emails. And so a fine balance is attempted where those who do this work try to not burn out from being discouraged or having to work with folk who simply cannot or will not see the macro bigger picture to all the micro decisions they make. 

I write this as a call to all of those folk on conference planning committees, those who feel the need (or are forced) to send empty mea culpa emails with asks for free organizing labour from disabled folk. Please read what I have framed here and think about what your email (however well intentioned or "good faith" you think it is) will be received. Because intent is not impact and that is equity framing 101. The time to work on this is when you are starting to plan the conference or event, not when you see your registration numbers are in the tank because you ignored folk yet again. Emails like that tell us deeply that you will never be community, and that community we would want to be part of will only appear when you truly want to be open to these conversations from the beginning and not sit behind the "it costs too much" fence you love to call home.